Quote:
Originally Posted by renntrade
Revenue and sales up on the top .01% cars or racing supplies & equipment have almost nothing to do with the majority of 'the Porsche thing' dying as a whole.
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Exaggerate much...
top .01%?
People said "it was over" a decade ago when RS values slid from a high of 80-100K back down to 50-60k. Now they are two, three or even 4 times that number. We're in a trough right now. It's directly tied to a slowly recovering economy. Give it 2 or 3 more years and we'll be right back where we were. The excitement and interest in anything air cooled will return.
But I doubt that there will ever be much interest again in B-grade used parts. There's so many good repros on the market today that someone with a presentable air cooled driver is going to use a bunch of repro parts. Only concours caliber used and NOS parts are going to be the stuff that gets chased in the future. Otherwise, most owners will just turn to the aftermarket.
That trend started before the recent economic downturn. Before my current business, I was an employee in one of the larger Porsche air-cooled dismantlers in the country. Not top 10 in size, but probably in the top 20, and we had a yard full of good used air cooled 911s. We also sold new stuff. When a repro tailight reflector sells at retail for a '73 T is $80, a nice used one is $100 and a b-grade used one is $50-60, which one do you think we sold the most of? That's right, the repro. Same thing with door handles, lock kits, headlight lenses, Fuchs wheel crests, etc. etc.
It happened in American muscle cars and it's happening in Porsches now. The top of the market for high quality OEM skyrockets. The reproduction market fills the gap for those who can't afford to "restore" to OEM concours standards, and the bottom drops out of the value of marginal used parts.